Favorite Denis Villeneuve Film

I've only seen Prisoners, and it was just okay. Nothing amazing.

Sicario ; hands down.

it's the only movie i score a 7 or higher amongst the batch.

He is a director with good technique and uses actors well, but he is morally deficient. He uses sadism and perversion to enhance the box office. So do many film-makers but they do not have pretensions to be taken seriously.

The trouble with violence porn is that it is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Once a single murder was a sufficient subject for a thriller or drama. Now, looking at American films, an outsider might think that 90% of US murders are by serial killers, who I imagine in real life are rare monsters.

Similarly there is a disturbing increase in incest, child molestation and murder in movies. If a director who wishes to be taken seriously includes such subjects, he needs to do so with heart, not be cold-bloodied about it just to boost the box office.

Villeneuve is not alone. I recently watched the original (Swedish) version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. As if the main story was not grim enough, the final scenes claimed that the murderer(s) had killed (it looked like) hundreds of girls and no-one really much noticed. Sweden only has a total population of 10 million so this is as comical as it is gratuitously sadistic.

The Swedish film reminded me of Villeneuve's in style. It is a pity because both are talented directors and there is much to admire otherwise.

Incendies was great for 95% of the time. A compassionate and even-handed portrayal of the sufferings of the Lebanese people, a topic ignored or misrepresented in the US. Then he spoiled it with a contrived piece of perverted melodrama.

Sicario has a different problem, though it too delights in sadism. The supposedly shocking "reveal" is no surprise to those outside the USA, who have always known (at least since the Oliver North scandal) who are the main controllers of the drug market in the Americas. Difficult to believe that the (miscast) heroine would be that naïve.

It would be interesting to see Villeneuve use his talents on a screenplay by someone else removed from his own preoccupations. The man does have potential.